Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Chapter 1...

She woke to a door slam and a hand at her neck. The fingers clawed at her skin and she kicked blindly out at her attacker, gathering strength in hearing the staggering 'oof' of her assailant. Then she opened her eyes and saw that it was Jack.

His eyes were cold steel. In one hand hung a set of handcuffs. The other groped through the car for her collar and dragged her from the car. "What are you..?" He didn't respond. The cuffs clicked behind her and she was jostled forward, blinking in the light, into a station filled with ringing phones, the curses of offenders and the sobs of their loved ones. "Jack! Jack!" she cried his name over and over, fighting backwards against him.

Cara snapped upwards, looking about her with understanding. 'You foolish devil,' she thought. 'You foolish, sly devil.' Play along she would. And for catching her so off-guard, well what could she do but return the favor?

"No!" She threw herself against a nearby officer, strewing papers everywhere in desperate attempt to escape Jack's grip. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she let loose a low, menacing growl. She was no longer a silly car thief, or a girl fantasizing of rainbows. Cara was a mass murderer, she was crazy. She would rip your head from your neck with her teeth.

Everyone quieted. Even the rapists’ mothers stifled their cries and raised their heads to watch Cara make her fuss. Cara was the only one not watching. She was kicking out at everything near her, using her lover, Jack, as leverage. She nailed another officer before the rush began. Officers swarmed her, catching her wild legs, pinning her manic hips. To anyone unaware of the badges on their chests the whole scene would appear to be some gangbang rape show, with the girl screaming in the midst. When everyone settled, Cara was latched to a chair, handcuffs all over her limbs, and Jack was warily watching her from his desk.

‘You’re insane,’ his eyes said.

As convict families rediscovered their tissues and paperwork was all collected and organized, Cara spoke. “You deserved it.”

He pulled up a chair and sat close. “You’re not going home to him tonight,”

She sniffed in indignation.

“I’m not going to come collect you on the porch again, Cara.”

“I can handle him.”

“No. I pull up and you’re cowering on your own goddamned porch. I tell you to file charges and you stab a knife through his hand.”

“He deserved that too.”

“You’re not going to be anywhere near that house when he comes back from the hospital tonight.”

She glared. He had no right to dictate her life. “Hell if I won’t.”

He slammed his hand on the table. “Try it.”

God he liked good in that uniform. Her hands shook at the idea. Mike would be furious to find the house empty when he returned. He would look for her, and Jack. Oh god. Jack. She couldn’t let that happen.

Taking her silence for something else, Jack settled back behind his desk and sighed. He flipped through papers. Too much work. An 18 year old, brand new rapist thrown back in a jail cell. It was a grand way to celebrate newfound adulthood. Jack paused and slowly looked up at her. Cara sat staring at the proceedings about her. The metal chafed uncomfortably at her wrists and ankles. He had done this to her? Sometimes he wondered just how different he was from the man he refused to let her go home to.

Jack had hit her once. That was after her first accident. He found Cara on her porch, swinging away on the porch. Her eyes were gone, looking at something not in his plane. He made her stand, and when she tried to go back inside her house, Jack jerked her away from the door and slapped her across the face. Her eyes came back to him again, but her hands trembled in their own fury and he wouldn’t lay another hand on her as she tackled him. Those trembling hands broke his nose, her feet wouldn’t stop kicking, but he couldn’t bring himself to defend himself against the blows.

Her hands were shaking like that now.

And now, strapped to the chair by her hands and feet, he wondered if he had done it again.